Electronic code communication system



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ELECTRONIC CODE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM Filed Feb. 3, 1955 19 SheetsSheet 6 IN VEN TOR H. C. S l B L EY .I .oz 20.25 ltz: 556.5. I.' M

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lELECTRONIC CODE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM Filed Feb. 3, 1955 19 Sheets-Sheet 14 mw y mmv Oct. 4, 1960 H. c. slBLl-:Y 2,955,278

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BY H. C. SIBLEY 7mm HIS ATTORNEY FIG. 8B.

Oct. 4, 1960 H. c. slBLEY ELECTRONIC Cons ComNuNICATIoN SYSTEM 19 Sheets-Sheet 16 Filed Feb. 3, 1955 Oct.4, 1960 H. c. slBLEY ELECTRONIC CODE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM 19 Sheets-Sheet 17 Filed Feb. 3, 1955 VA VA X x VA X X X X mm @ozI 0oz woz .oz 505. tz: M5555 zQt @wml woz Noz aml mplznoo 50mm VA VA BY H. C. SIBLEY 7mm HIS ATTORNEY Oct. 4, 1960 H. c. slBLEY ELECTRONIC CCDE COMMUNICATION sys'mu 19 Sheets-Sheet 18 FiledFeb, 3, 1955 m mmn mmf-.Z300 n m .w 5 O. m D .wad OO Oct. 4, 1960 H. c. slBLEY ELECTRONIC com: COMMUNICATION SYSTEM 19 heets-sheer 19 Filed Feb. 5, 1955 ...E Noz mim INVENTCR. H. C. SIBLEY BY H|s ATTORNEY United nLnorRoNrc `conn oor-@Momenten SYSTEM Henry C. Sibley, Spencerport, N.Y., assignor to General Railway Signal Company, Roehester,-N.Y.

Filed Feb. AT), 1955, Ser. No. 485,973

6 Claims. (Cl. S40- 163) This inventionrelates to an electronic, pulse-type, code communication system. More particularly, it pertains to a communication system for use in railway signaling to transfer information about track occupancy and conditions of the switches, signals, and other devices as required from a plurality of field stations to a centralofrice.

The high speed of operation possible with an electronic system and obtainable Without the mechanical movement and resultant wear that occurs in relay type systems makes it practical to provide a continuous scanning system. In

this kind of system, all the indications from the various stations are transmitted in succession to the central office once during each cycle of operation and with yone cycle following another continuously. Since .the scanning occurs at a rapid rate, the indications displayed at the central ofiice always represent substantially fresh information.

In a scanning communication system, the indication code for any field station or particular group of stations is identified as belonging .to that station or group merely by its place in the complete cycle of operation. This feature makes it unnecessaryto transmit infomation about the identity of each station as it sends .its indication code, although this is ordinarily required in code communication systems in which each station transmits only when it has a new indication to send to the central ofce.

One objection in the past to the use Vof electronic .systems for railway signaling has been thatthey are complex and lack the reliability required for this kind of service. Also, because the various lield stations usually are at remote locations Where commercial powersources are not available or are not sufficiently reliable to be used as the only source of power, the field station apparatus must be organized to operate from a battery without loading it too heavily. This restriction .made .prior electronic systems impractical to use because they required too much power. To overcome these objections, this code communication system is organized to provide highly reliable operation with low power requirements, particularly at each field station. These features have been brought about in part through the use of various circuit organizations using cold cathode glow tubes which .do not require any tilament heating power and therefore considerably reduce the .power requirements of the system. Cold cathode tubesare used not only for counting nui-poses and for storage of indications, but also in various pulse generating and timing circuits kso that the majority of the tubes at each field station location are of the cold cathode type.

Described brieliy and without any attempt to define it in its exact terms, the invention comprises in one of its forms a plurality of field stations, each connected .to a central ofiice over a pair of line Wires. During a cycle of operation, each station in its allotted time in the cycle sends a series of pulses comprising the indication information from that station tothe central office. A modification ofthe invention is also disclosed having a single field station, and this station repeatedly transmits its indications. to the central office.

. same preselected rate.

`Patented Oct. 4, Vi960 In one formof the invention, the transmitted pulses comprise tive millisecond intervals .during which a distinctive carrier frequency is transmitted followed by a iive millisecond rest period in which no carrier is transmitted. Thus each pulse period allotted to the transmission of a single codecharacter is ten milliseconds long. Actually, either of two distinctive characters can be transmitted on a pulse period. For one -kind of code character, a particular frequency-is transmitted in the manner just described; a different kind of character is transmitted by slightly shifting .the frequency of the carrier wave on that `pulse period.

The transmission of Vpulses ybetween theV central office and the field stations can be accomplished by ,keying a carrier transmitter and sending the resulting pulses over a pair of line wires connecting vthe office with each station. Or, if desired, the codes may be transmitted by space radio in any desired manner Vsuch vas by frequency modulation, pulse position modulation, or the like.

When the system comprises a number of field stations, each station preferably transmits .its code pulses at the To accomplish this, a stream of timing pulses is transmitted from the central oiiice during a cycle. These pulses are received at each field station and establish, kby their repetition rate, the rate at which the indication pulses are transmitted -to the central ofiice. Each field station is `thus driven Yby these pulses received from the ,central oiiice. As with the indication code just described, these timingpulses comprise, in one form of the invention, tive millisecond intervals on which a distinctive carrier frequency (different from the indication frequency) is transmitted followed .by a five millisecond rest period to forma Aten millisecond pulse period.

Also, each station must transmit its indications only during the time period in the cycle allotted to that station. To accomplish this, there is periodically inserted in the stream of vtiming pulses transmitted from the central ofiice, a distinctive pulse called a station-call pulse. rl`his pulse can be made distinctive from thetiming-pulses by shifting slightly the `frequency of the transmitted carrier, Each field station has means for recognizing the special station-call pulses and counting them to determine when in the cycle it should transmit its indication code. As an example, field .station No. l0 becomes gated to transmit its indication code pulses upon having .counted ten station-call pulses; its indication pulses are then transmitted at the rate of the timing pulses received in the interval or station period lasting from this tenth stationcall pulse until the arrival of the eleventh .station-call pulse.

To store the indications at the central office, banks of storage units are provided, one for each field station. Each bank includes a number of dual state storage devices, one for each of the ten pulse periods comprising the code for that station. Each of these devices fcan be operated to one condition or the other dependent upon the kind of code character received on the respective pulse period from the particular station corresponding to that bank. These banks of storage unitsvare selectively gated in -turn by a station counter so that `the groups of incoming indication pulses, eachjfrom a different lield station, are in effect, routed to the proper storage bank.

Since the various pulse periods are -eliectively demarcated at the central oflice by the means generating the timing pulses transmitted to the field stationit is theoretically necessary to `transmit `only one kind of code character from a tield station since the absence of any transmission -on a stepV could then represent the other kind of code digit on that step. If this were done, it would require that proper synchronization be always maintained to ensure that each locally timed pulse period occurred 

